Jail Overcrowding

Letter writer Glenn Broad (April 11) castigates Ramona Ripston and the ACLU for being concerned with jail overcrowding. A great many of the people in the county jail system have not been convicted of anything, but only have been charged and are awaiting their day in court. Unless our government has been overthrown overnight and a dictatorship installed, we still operate under the principle of "innocent until proven guilty," and it is sad to know that this simple, basic, constitutional protection of due process is conveniently forgotten in the overcrowding debate.

Los Angeles County supervisors voted Tuesday to halt a controversial plan to send county jail inmates to a facility in Kern County after a board member who had originally supported the contract changed her mind. The supervisors voted last month to approve a $75-million, five-year plan to send about 500 county inmates serving lengthy sentences to the correctional facility run by the city of Taft. The plan was touted as a cost-effective way to free up local jail beds and increase time served by the most serious offenders.

Looking at Gingrich Re "Will the best debater win?," Opinion, Nov. 15 Jonah Goldberg elevates the immoral and discredited Newt Gingrich to the level of great white Republican hope. For shame: We're discussing the leadership of our country. Instead, he offers this sophomoric analysis. Gingrich is smart, educated and totally dishonest. In his previous power position he brought the federal government to a halt. Now Goldberg and other conservative pundits seem to think that if Gingrich had another chance he could stop the Earth's rotation.

With some county jail inmates serving only a fraction of their sentences due to overcrowding, as The Times reported Sunday, Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich has called on Sheriff Lee Baca to provide ideas on how to increase the portion of their terms that inmates actually spend behind bars. The supervisor asked specifically about contracting for more lockups throughout the state - while failing to mention an option that could immediately free up space to house the most serious offenders.

Prompted by dire projections for even more severe jail overcrowding into the next decade, Board of Supervisors Chairman Harriett M. Wieder has scheduled a meeting Tuesday with Sheriff Brad Gates and other officials to discuss possible recommendations outlined in a recent jail study. Wieder said Friday that she was encouraged that cities were being urged to either expand or build new jails of their own because of the county's chronic overcrowding problems.

A court hearing scheduled for next week on Orange County jail overcrowding has been postponed for the second time to give U.S. District Judge William P. Gray more time to recover from recent surgery. The judge had been expected to tour the county jails and inspect allegations of overcrowding at four of the five facilities. But aides to the judge said Thursday that it will have to wait. "It was on, but now it's off again," the judge's scheduling clerk said.

As a Catholic worker who has been serving on skid row for 32 years, I know many people among the "floor-sleepers" population at county jails ("Inmates Forced to Sleep on Floor," Aug. 15). I know, personally, many people who have been incarcerated for jaywalking, drinking in public, possession of a stolen shopping cart, sitting on the street, sleeping on the street, urinating in public and panhandling. Are these people criminals? I say no. It is not my intention to canonize my friends.

For the second time in two years, Orange County Sheriff Brad Gates has been found in contempt of court because of jail overcrowding, with a Municipal judge ruling Thursday that Gates should not have refused to incarcerate six men arrested on warrants. "I find the sheriff in contempt," Central Orange County Presiding Municipal Judge Gary P. Ryan concluded after an hourlong hearing.

Vowing not to release convicts early, the Board of Supervisors appointed a special task force on Wednesday to study other means of complying with a federal court order to relieve overcrowding at the Orange County Jail, including setting up emergency prison camps on county-owned property. Supervisors specifically discussed the use of Quonset huts, prefabricated shelters of corrugated metal. Wednesday's board action was in response to U.S. District Judge William P.

U.S. District Judge William P. Gray, an affable and influential jurist who cut his teeth on an important case involving the Long Beach Naval Shipyard and went on to oversee jail overcrowding crises in Los Angeles and Orange counties, died at home in Pasadena late Monday night of a malignant brain tumor. He was 79. Gray, who was appointed to the federal bench in 1966, won acclaim for his legal scholarship, his devotion to the law and his determination to protect the rights of prisoners.

Looking at Gingrich Re "Will the best debater win?," Opinion, Nov. 15 Jonah Goldberg elevates the immoral and discredited Newt Gingrich to the level of great white Republican hope. For shame: We're discussing the leadership of our country. Instead, he offers this sophomoric analysis. Gingrich is smart, educated and totally dishonest. In his previous power position he brought the federal government to a halt. Now Goldberg and other conservative pundits seem to think that if Gingrich had another chance he could stop the Earth's rotation.

Lindsay Lohan pleaded no contest Wednesday to misdemeanor theft for stealing a gold necklace and was promptly sentenced to 120 days in jail — time she may be eligible to serve confined to her Venice home. Because of jail overcrowding, the 24-year-old actress is expected to serve only a fraction of the sentence, either in jail or on electronic home monitoring, beginning June 17. Her attorney Shawn Holley entered the no-contest plea at the Airport Courthouse on her behalf in connection with the Jan. 22 theft from Venice jewelers Kamofie & Co. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Stephanie Sautner also placed Lohan on three years' probation and required her to attend a shoplifting offender's program and receive psychological counseling.

The Times is asking the two major candidates competing to succeed Los Angeles County Supervisor Yvonne B. Burke about some key issues in the 2nd District, which stretches from Mar Vista through South Los Angeles and into Compton and Carson. Today, Los Angeles City Councilman Bernard C. Parks and state Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas (D-Los Angeles) offer their ideas for addressing jail overcrowding, gangs and the homeless.

Don't expect other inmates released early from the Los Angeles County Jail to be thrown back in to serve their full sentences, despite what happened to Paris Hilton. That's the consensus among top judges and prosecutors who say there are a variety of practical, political and legal issues that prevent challenging Sheriff Lee Baca's policy of releasing inmates well before their sentences end. Many of his colleagues privately applaud the decision by Superior Court Judge Michael T.

County supervisors directed lawyers Tuesday to study the constitutionality of a Sheriff's Department policy calling for people arrested in some cities to spend more time in jail than others who commit the same crimes elsewhere. To avoid jail overcrowding, Sheriff Lee Baca has ordered the early release of more than 150,000 inmates since 2002.

To ease jail overcrowding, San Bernardino County Sheriff Gary Penrod has adopted a temporary policy to stop jailing suspects accused of drug offenses, theft, burglary and other nonviolent offenses if they promise to appear in court. Some sex offenders who fail to register with police, a violation of state law, also will be booked, cited and then released from custody if they promise to show up at their scheduled court hearings.

In a decision that effectively ends a 13-year-old lawsuit over jail overcrowding in Orange County, a federal judge in Los Angeles has refused to allow the American Civil Liberties Union to expand its claims in the litigation. "This case is 13 years old and all of the original plaintiffs are long gone," U.S. District Judge William P. Gray said in an opinion filed June 30 and released Tuesday.

As a Catholic worker who has been serving on skid row for 32 years, I know many people among the "floor-sleepers" population at county jails ("Inmates Forced to Sleep on Floor," Aug. 15). I know, personally, many people who have been incarcerated for jaywalking, drinking in public, possession of a stolen shopping cart, sitting on the street, sleeping on the street, urinating in public and panhandling. Are these people criminals? I say no. It is not my intention to canonize my friends.